MARRIAGE–Good riddance or resurrect?

Pete McMartin
It is not that the family is changing, the family is dying. 27% of Canadian households have just one person in them – which is three times as many households as those of five or more - 8.7%. ‘Five or more” sounds crowded but, in fact, it’s Mom, Dad and three kids – or what in the despised conformist Fifties would have been called ‘the norm.”

The norm is no longer normal. Indeed, even in those three-kid homes, it may not be the pitter-patter of tiny feet you’re hearing: 58% of Torontonians in their twenties still live in the parental home, as the Western world does its best to extend adolescence well into middle age.

Mark Steyn
Millions of Britons have decided they’re happy to live together without benefit of clergy. Statistics Canada revealed in 2006 for the first time a majority, 51% of adults were unmarried. Common-law relationships increased by nearly 20%, single-parent households by 8%, same sex couples by over 30%.

When the family dies, the nation follows: We’ve seen heartwarming movies where plucky waitress moms do the best for their kids against the odds. The point is: it’s against the odds. In Britain a quarter of all children are being raised by single parents – which is to say a lot aren’t being raised at all. This is why many a quaint English market town transforms after dusk into a desolate dystopia preyed on by packs of 14-year olds.

Andrew Neil
In Glasgow, government spending accounts for 70% of GDP, and in the poorest part of the city life is nasty, brutish, and as short as in the Third World. Male life expectancy in North Korea: 60-years; Bangladesh: 58; Yemen: 57; Gabon: 55; Calton, Scotland: 54-years. Middle-aged Torontonians live with their parents, but middle-aged Glaswegians live with their ancestors.

The middle class abolished “living in sin” and embraced “long term partners,” and the working class stopped worrying about “broken homes” and accepted the sociological designation of “alternative families.” For good or ill?

DISCUSS:

"58% of Torontonians in their twenties still live in the parental home, as the Western world does its best to extend adolescence well into middle age."

Surely this is incorrect. I live in Toronto and I don't see this as the case at all. Maybe in the suburbs, but not in the city. Do you have a source for this statistic, out of curiousity?

More to your point,

"The middle class abolished “living in sin” and embraced “long term partners,” and the working class stopped worrying about “broken homes” and accepted the sociological designation of “alternative families.” For good or ill?"

Should a person who comes from a single-parent home (one like mine) view their family or home as "broken" when it is far from being such? Should long-term common-law partners (partners like me and my girlfriend) see ourselves as sinners when we clearly are not?

Also, I have never heard the term "Alternative Family" in my life.

Originally posted by darvlay
"58% of Torontonians in their twenties still live in the parental home, as the Western world does its best to extend adolescence well into middle age."

Surely this is incorrect. I live in Toronto and I don't see this as the case at all. Maybe in the suburbs, but not in the city. Do you have a source for this statistic, out of curiousity?

Originally posted by MacSwain
Pete McMartin of the Vancouver Sun
also other quotes (as noted) from:
Andrew Neil - Scottish journalist and Mark Steyn Canadian journalist & columnist.

However: Please don't make the crux of discussion sinfulness (that was just an aside by one of the writers) hopefully discussion will expose opinions on the decline of marriage - good or bad?

edit: added last bit

Originally posted by darvlay
More to your point,

"The middle class abolished “living in sin” and embraced “long term partners,” and the working class stopped worrying about “broken homes” and accepted the sociological designation of “alternative families.” For good or ill?"

Should a person who comes from a single-parent home (one like mine) view their family or home as "broken" wh ...[text shortened]... e clearly are not?

Also, I have never heard the term "Alternative Family" in my life.

Originally posted by MacSwain
Darvlay asks:
"Should long-term common-law partners (partners like me and my girlfriend) see ourselves as sinners"
Should a person who comes from a single-parent home (one like mine) view their family or home as "broken" when it is far from being such?

[b]Of course NOT...you shouldn't refer or think of yourself and your girlfriend in tho ...[text shortened]... re no longer recognised or used.

The question is: demise of marriage...good or bad?[/b]

"This is why many a quaint English market town transforms after dusk into a desolate dystopia preyed on by packs of 14-year olds. "

Hasn't it always been this way? Haven't kids always been trouble-makers?

The decline of marriage is a very bad thing for society which I attribute to the rise of the welfare state. As the state has assumed the role of surrogate parent for women unable to make correct or even responsible decisions about whether or not to have children, the result has been a rise in violence against women, unplanned pregnancies, abortions, crime, child abuse, etc. I won't go into the corresponding rise in power of family courts and the bureaucrats who manage child welfare agencies or the subsequent emasculation of men...it's far too depressing.

Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
The decline of marriage is a very bad thing for society which I attribute to the rise of the welfare state. As the state has assumed the role of surrogate parent for women unable to make correct or even responsible decisions about whether or not to have children, the result has been a rise in violence against women, unplanned pregnancies, abortio ...[text shortened]... manage child welfare agencies or the subsequent emasculation of men...it's far too depressing.

dsR - Just like Worker's Compensation, there are always going to be people who abuse the system at the expense of others. I understand why welfare is demonised in many places but there are a lot of families out there who are on welfare out of necessity and use the money to get themselves back on their feet. I have no problem paying the tax dollars for the social programs.

This questioning and repositioning of marriage was inevitable after women's lib. It's a good thing.

Marriage as an institution sprung up all over the world, more or less independently, around 4500 years ago. The earliest records we have of marriage date from ancient Mesopotamia, and those records are all legal contracts - they lay out an agreement for the legal foundation of marriage and describe how both parties will make out financially in the invent of the marriage's end. Prior to this, most humans lived hunter-gatherer lifestyles, and the entire tribe functioned like one big family with very little monogamy. You might not know who your father was, but it didn't matter, because you were a child of the whole tribe. But once humans started settling down and developing agriculture, forming civilizations, etc., things like personal property and financial security became much more important. Fathers wanted to know which children were theirs so they could pass on their inheritance, and women, who in most cultures had no power or property of their own, needed marriages to guarantee their security.

The historical basis of marriage is legal, not religious, and it was based on the social inequalities of men and women. You see it across cultures and across religions, but what you always see, always, is a legal element to it. Marriage is a union before the state, and its a union that the individuals can't dissolve, at least not without the state's help. That's its whole point. A woman, who for social reasons could not (or usually could not) see to her own financial security or social standing, could permanently bind herself to a man to make sure she got those things. The man got a live-in maid, sex as he desired it, and a vessel for his children to carry on his namesake.

But in a society which believes in the social equality of women and men, none of that works anymore, and we're starting to figure that out. The old reasons for having marriage are less and less relevant as we get closer to a gender-neutral culture. Now women are free, and educated, and they can hold jobs and see to their own social standing. So now marriage has shifted to be fundamentally about love, a bond between equals. That's a new thing, and it's forcing us to rethink a lot of the ramifications of marriage. For instance, now that marriage is a bond between equals, suddenly gay marriage makes sense for the first time. The gay marriage debate could never have taken place a hundred years ago, but women's lib has made it inevitable.

This is all very new, but that doesn't mean it's bad. As scary as these new things can seem, they're an improvement on ages past, when women had no social standing or social power of their own. I don't see marriage going anywhere; I think people want to be able into a permanent bond, a bond that they themselves can't easily break. It's just going to be about equality and love instead of inequality and subjugation. That's an improvement.

Originally posted by darthmix
I think people want to be able into a permanent bond, a bond that they themselves can't easily break. It's just going to be about equality and love instead of inequality and subjugation. That's an improvement.

No, nothing I've said leads to that position at all.

The whole point of age-of-consent laws is that, below a certain age, a person cannot legally consent to sex because they lack the maturity to make an informed and self-conscious decision. A relationship between two people, either of whom is below the age of consent, is not considered a freely-chosen one, because the "choice" of a minor is not valid with regard to sex. A marriage between a man and a boy cannot be considered a marriage between equals because the boy lacks the ability to make a mature decision.

That has nothing to do with my earlier post, nor is it contradicted by anything I've said.

But what if they (a man and a boy) really love each other? Aren't you just discriminating based on age?